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From: wald@zarquon.uchicago.edu (Kevin Wald)
Subject: Re: Scots & English & Ulster Scots
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References: <3nh9mo$kgi@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <3pifj5$3fk@maverick.tad.eds.com> <19MAY199512052997@cc.weber.edu> <3pl795$lct@apollo.it.luc.edu>
Date: Sat, 20 May 1995 18:25:36 GMT
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In article <3pl795$lct@apollo.it.luc.edu>,
Liam Harte <lharte@orion.it.luc.edu> wrote:
>helliott@cc.weber.edu wrote:
>: In article <3pifj5$3fk@maverick.tad.eds.com<
>: , Stewart McKenna <ahipc1j.smcken01@eds.com< writes...
>: <The Scots may speak a form of English, or Scots,
>: <but they are. for the most part, NOT Anglo-Saxon !
>
>: no, but their speech is.
>
>Are you sure about both of these claims?  My understanding has always been
>that Scots developed independently *alongside* English, rather than being
>an offshoot of it--hence the very different vocabulary, despite the
>similarities in grammar.  Or do you mean that both languages have the same
>roots in Anglo-Saxon languages other than modern English?  Could you 
>clarify this point?
>
>Liam Harte.

Anglo-Saxon is a name given to the collection of Germanic dialects spoken
in Great Britain before the Norman conquest. The four major dialect
divisions in Anglo-Saxon are West Saxon (in the southwest), Kentish
(in the southeast), Mercian (in the Midlands), and Northumbrian 
(everything north of the Humber, including the Scottish Lowlands).
What we now call (standard) Modern English descends from the dialect of
Middle English spoken in London, which in turn descends from Mercian,
though with considerable West Saxon and Kentish influences. What we
now call Modern Scots descends ultimately from the variety of 
Northumbrian spoken in the Scottish Lowlands. Thus

   1) The two tongues *did* evolve side by side, and neither is
 an offshoot of the other (though to say they evolved independently
 is somewhat misleading, since it might be taken to imply that there
 was no *influence* of one on the other, which is not the case), and

   2) They are both descendants of Anglo-Saxon.

Kevin Wald              |  Hwaet saegest thu, yrthlingc?
wald@math.uchicago.edu  |     -- AElfric, _Colloquium Martianum_
